Design, build quality, handling

The Galaxy A16 5G is unquestionably a modern Samsung phone. You can spot its distinctive design language a mile away. And when we say distinctive, we are more or less talking about the triple vertical camera arrangement on the back without a unified camera island.

Other than that, the A16 5G looks like any other current phone. It has a mostly flat frame with nicely rounded corners that don't dig into your palms. There are subtle and gentle chamfers on the back and front of the middle frame for a better in-hand feel. There is nothing aggressive or stark about the design and the shape here, just nicely flowing natural lines.

Since we are already talking about the back of the phone, we might as well point out that it is a real fingerprint magnet. You'll never be able to keep the glossy plastic surface clean.

Despite being plastic, it feels very solid. In fact, there is no flex to the phone's frame, nor is there any hollowness.

You can get the Galaxy A16 5G in one of four colors: Blue Black, Light Gray, Gold or Light Green. In our opinion, our Black Blue unit airs more on the side of black than blue.

Let's talk materials. As we mentioned, the back of the phone is made of plastic, and so is the middle frame. Plastic is strong, light, and doesn't quite dent like metal or shatter like glass - plus, it lets signals through uninterrupted.

The front of the Galaxy A16 5G is made of some sort of glass. Unfortunately, Samsung does not specify what kind. The phone doesn't come with a factory pre-applied screen protector either.

In terms of ingress protection, the Galaxy A16 5G gets an IP54 rating, which is fairly basic. However, the SIM tray on our unit does have a pretty thick rubber gasket, so the phone might actually survive a quick dip.

At the front, the bezels are fairly wide and the teardrop selfie camera notch also screams budget. The earpiece is nicely hidden away. There are no visible sensors here, either.

The A16 5G uses a virtual proximity sensor, but it has a physical ambient light sensor tucked under the display.

The Galaxy A16 5G doesn't have an in-display fingerprint reader. Instead, it relies on a capacitive one positioned inside the power button on the right-hand side of the frame. The buttons are nice and clicky and offer plenty of tactile feedback.

The fingerprint reader works perfectly fine. It is both speedy and accurate.

Samsung Galaxy A16 5G

The raised "island" that houses the buttons on the right-hand side of the frame is also a pretty distinctive feature of the current Samsung design.

The left frame is mostly empty if you don't count the SIM slot. The top of the phone is also mostly empty. There is a tiny hole for a noise-canceling mic.

The bottom houses the single loudspeaker on the A16 5G. The main mic and the Type-C port are here. It's just the essentials really.

Display

The Galaxy A16 5G has a 6.7-inch Super AMOLED panel. It has a standard FHD+ resolution of 1080 x 2340 pixels in a 19.5:9 aspect ratio. This works out to a pixel density of around 385, which looks perfectly sharp in person.

Samsung advertises 800 nits of whole display brightness for the Galaxy A16 5G. We managed to exceed this figure in our standardized testing, reaching up to 824 nits. That's not super bright, especially by today's standards, but we found it comfortable enough for outdoor use.

As mentioned, the A16 5G has a proper light sensor hidden away underneath the display. It does a perfectly adequate job of adjusting the brightness. You probably want to leave it enabled, too, since without auto resolution, the phone managed a mere 392 nits of max brightness in manual mode by maxing out the slider.

The Galaxy A16 5G has a 90Hz refresh rate. That's basic by today's standards, but we still appreciate anything over 60. There are two modes available in display settings. One simply locks the refresh rate to 60Hz, conserving power, while the other allows the phone to go up to 90Hz. Basically, that happens every time you interact with the phone. Leave it alone for a couple of seconds, and it would go down to 60Hz.

We tried some high refresh rate games on the A16 5G as well, and as long as the hardware can actually render more than 60fps, the display was usually happy to accommodate and run at 90Hz.

The Galaxy A16 5G lacks any display HDR support. On a more positive note, the A16 5G has the highest possible Widevine L1 DRM certification, allowing streaming services like Netflix to offer up FullHD streams.

Battery life

The Galaxy A16 5G has a 5,000 mAh battery, which is pretty standard nowadays. We expected pretty solid battery life from the A16 5G but were sort of disappointed. Twelve hours or so of Active Use Score isn't bad, but it's merely okay, nothing spectacular.

Charging speed

The Galaxy A16 5G supports Samsung's PD-based fast charging at up to 25W. Hence, it should charge at a pretty familiar rate and indeed it does charge at a pace practically identical to the Galaxy A15. That is to say, not too slow, but definitely not too fast, by today's standards.

Fifteen minutes on the charger took the phone from dead to 25% charge, another fifteen minutes made that 47% and a full charge took us 1:21h.

Speakers - loudness and quality

The Galaxy A16 5G has a single, bottom-firing speaker at its disposal. There is no stereo setup here, not even a hybrid one.

The A16 5G was Very Good in our loudness testing, mostly thanks to its high-pitched sounds. Quality-wise, the speaker is passable but unremarkable. It mostly focuses on highs, with decent enough vocals and practically no bass.

Use the Playback controls to listen to the phone sample recordings (best use headphones). We measure the average loudness of the speakers in LUFS. A lower absolute value means a louder sound. A look at the frequency response chart will tell you how far off the ideal "0db" flat line is the reproduction of the bass, treble, and mid frequencies. You can add more phones to compare how they differ. The scores and ratings are not comparable with our older loudspeaker test. Learn more about how we test here.

Connectivity

As its name suggests, the Galaxy 16 5G is a 5G device. It supports SA/NSA Sub-6 connectivity. The A16 5G comes in either a single SIM variant, with a dedicated microSD slot or a dual Nano-SIM model with a hybrid second slot that can take a SIM or a microSD card. There is no eSIM support. There is GPS, GALILEO, GLONASS, BDS and QZSS support for location. Local connectivity is handled by dual-band Wi-Fi ac and Bluetooth 5.3 with LE support. There is NFC, but it is market-dependent, meaning its availability will depend on where you are getting the phone so best to check with your retailer if it's an important feature to you. There is no FM radio; or a 3.5mm audio jack.

The Type-C port on the Galaxy A16 5G is backed by a simple USB 2.0 controller, which means a theoretical max data transfer speed of 480 Mbps. There is nothing fancy like video output. However, the A16 5G does support USB Host/OTG.

Unfortunately, the Galaxy A16 5G has a virtual proximity sensor. Given its budget price, this is not entirely unexpected, but it is still not ideal. Still, it works well enough to turn off the phone's display during calls. Other than that, there is an STM LSM6DSOTR accelerometer and gyroscope combo, an AMS TCS3701 ambient light sensor and a Haechitech MXG4300S magnetometer and compass combo. There is no barometer.

Android 14 with One UI 6.1

The Galaxy A16 5G boots Android 14 with Samsung's latest One UI 6.1 software layer on top. Samsung recently redesigned its software support scheme, and the Galaxy A16 5G became eligible for a whopping six major Android upgrades. Compared to competitors, this is a very strong positive in favor of the Galaxy A16 5G as long as you can trust the budget hardware to run Android smoothly six years from now.

In case you were wondering, Samsung's Galaxy AI isn't present on the A16 5G. It is still relegated mostly to flagship devices, though Samsung has been broadening the reach of the features a bit lately. Not quite this much, though.

Some of the notable One UI 6 novelties include a redesigned Quick Panel, better notification visualization, an improved and simplified camera app, and more powerful gallery and editing tools.

The Galaxy A16 5G gets a pretty feature-complete version of One UI 6.1. You are getting the same general UX and even most of the features of the Galaxy S series.

The good news to all Galaxy users is that the list of software features reserved for the flagships has been shrinking in recent years and currently includes niche things like Samsung DeX.

Everything else is typical One UI - lockscreen, homescreen, widgets and icons, theme handling, multi-tasking (available in both pop-up and split-screen state), and default apps.

You can read more details about OneUI 6 in our Galaxy A25 review.

Benchmarks and performance

As mentioned, the Galaxy A16 5G is in a weird position regarding hardware since, depending on the region, it can come with a Samsung Exynos 1330 chipset or a MediaTek Dimensity 6300. Our review unit is running the Exynos 1330.

The Exynos 1330 is a 5nm chip with an Octa-core (2x2.4 GHz Cortex-A78 & 6x2.0 GHz Cortex-A55) CPU setup and a Mali-G68 MP2 GPU. The Mediatek Dimensity 6300 is a 6nm chip with an Octa-core (2x2.4 GHz Cortex-A76 & 6x2.0 GHz Cortex-A55) CPU setup and a Mali-G57 MC2 GPU.

The Exynos 1330 has already been available in the Galaxy A14 5G. Unfortunately, we haven't seen that particular variant at the office. So, effectively, both the Exynos 1330 and the Dimensity 6300 are new chips for us.

For memory, the Galaxy A16 5G comes with either 4GB of RAM and 128GB of storage or 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. As far as we can tell, the storage chips used here are of UFS 2.2 speed, which is not ideal but certainly better than budget eMMC chips. Storage is expandable via a microSD card. Our review unit is the base 4GB RAM and 128GB one. Those 4GB of RAM have us a bit worried about future-proofing. Still, Samsung has promised up to six major updates, and we have to take that promise for what it is.

Let's kick things off with GeekBench and some CPU testing. The Exynos 1330 is far from the most powerful chip in its price segment, but it holds its own quite well, particularly in single-threaded workloads. It is comparable in performance to the Exynos 1380 and the Exynos 1280. The Dimensity 6080 isn't too far off either, and the same goes for the Helio G99 Ultra. The Snapdragon 695 and Snapdragon 4 Gen 2 are also in the same rough performance ballpark.

AnTuTu is a much more compound benchmark with memory and GPU tests in its roster. It positions the Galaxy A16 5G as having pretty middle-of-the-line performance in its price bracket, similar to the Redmi 13 5G, the Xiaomi Poco M6 Pro and the Redmi Note 13 5G.

The Mali-G68 MP2 inside the Galaxy A16 5G is certainly not the most powerful GPU, but it gets by pretty well and a bit better than the popular Mali-G57 MC2 setup that so many chipsets use. The Samsung Exynos 1280 and 1380 might offer CPU performance similar to the Exynos 1330, but both have more cores in their GPU and, hence, notably better graphical performance.

Going by benchmarks, the Galaxy A16 5G is clearly not starved for performance. However, from a more practical standpoint, we have to say that we don't particularly like the way our review unit is running One UI 6.1. There are plenty of slowdowns and even the occasional stutter. In our opinion, the 4GB of RAM is probably a bit too little for things to run smoothly.

Thermal-throttling

The Exynos 1330 might not be super powerful, but at least it doesn't put out too much heat. It thermal-throttles quite smoothly and gracefully.

Thermal-throttling

The phone's surface doesn't get too hot either; it is just lukewarm, even with prolonged stress testing.

Basic triple camera setup

The Galaxy A16 5G has what we would call a pretty basic triple-camera setup. The main camera is a 50MP unit without any bells and whistles. Then you get a pretty low-res 5MP selfie and a supplementary 2MP macro cam.

The main camera uses the pretty common Samsung ISOCELL S5KJN1 sensor, commonly known as the JN1. It is a 1/2.76" sensor with 0.64µm individual pixels.

The 5MP ultrawide is based on a fairly obscure SmartSens SC501 sensor. It has a 1/5" optical size and 1.12µm individual pixels. We couldn't find any info on the hardware of the 2MP macro cam.

The selfie camera is based on a GalaxyCore GC13A0 sensor with 1/3.1" size and 1.12µm pixels.

• Wide (main): 50 MP Samsung ISOCELL S5KJN1 f/1.8, 1/2.76", 0.64µm; 1080p@30fps
• Ultra wide angle: 5 MP SmartSens SC501, f/2.2, 1/5", 1.12µm; 1080p@30fps
• Macro: 2 MP, f/2.4.
• Front camera: 13 MP GalaxyCore GC13A0, f/2.0, 1/3.1", 1.12µm; 1080p@30fps

The Galaxy A16 5G is limited to only recording 1080p video on its main camera. However, that limitation seems to be artificial. It doesn't come from the camera or the chipset, and we were able to record 4K videos with the Open Camera app. But more on that later.

The camera app is the same as you'd find on every Samsung phone these days. You only get Pro mode on the main camera, while night mode can be used across the main and selfie cams.

Daylight photo quality

Main camera

The main camera on the A16 5G captures binned photos at 12.5MP by default. These are pretty solid overall but fail to truly impress. Detail is good, though there is quite a bit of softness on surfaces. Colors look nice and natural.

Samsung Galaxy A16 5G: 12.5MP main camera samples

Dynamic range isn't great. The sky is often clipped. Contrast isn't great, either. The processing is rather aggressive, with plenty of sharpening going on.

The main camera does all right with people. Facial features come through, and skin tones look nice, even if they are not exactly true to life.

Portraits are very convincing, with nearly perfect subject detection and separation and a convincing background blur effect.

Samsung Galaxy A16 5G: 12.5MP main camera portrait samples

You can force the main camera to capture in its full 50MP resolution. These shots definitely have more fine detail.

Samsung Galaxy A16 5G: 50MP main camera samples

Other than that, processing seems very similar, with unfortunately limited dynamic range and contrast.

2x zoom crops from the main camera look very similar to 1x shots. The overall processing is solid, and so are details and colors. There is a bit of softness, especially on surfaces. Contrast and dynamic range are far from perfect.

Samsung Galaxy A16 5G: 12.5MP main camera 2x zoom samples

Ultrawide camera

The ultrawide camera on the Galaxy A16 5G is pretty basic. It only has a 5MP resolution and nothing fancy like autofocus.

Samsung Galaxy A16 5G: 5MP ultrawide camera samples

We can't say that we are overly impressed with the quality of these shots. They are soft and blurry without much detail and with even more aggressive corner softness. The dynamic range is poor, and so is contrast. At least the colors look nice and are well-matched to the main camera.

Macro camera

The 2MP macro camera on the Galaxy A16 5G is nice to have but definitely nothing to get excited about. You can still get some decent photos for social media if you tap into your artistic side, but don't expect it to be easy since the focal plane is fixed and fairly narrow.

Samsung Galaxy A16 5G: 2MP macro camera samples

Selfie camera

The selfie camera on the Galaxy A16 5G is not particularly special in any way. It has a fixed focus and can only capture 1080p video. The focal plane is pretty deep and forgiving, which is great. Quality isn't half bad. Skin tone and gesture come through nicely in these shots.

Samsung Galaxy A16 5G: 13MP selfie camera samples

Low-light camera quality

The main camera captures decent but far from spectacular low-light photos. The detail is good, and so are the colors. There is some noise, but it is kept to a minimum. Darker areas are surprisingly well-developed. However, light sources are blown out.

Samsung Galaxy A16 5G: 12.5MP main camera low-light samples

Contrast and dynamic range could use some work.

The Galaxy A16 5G lacks an automatic night mode. You have to trigger it manually yourself. Unfortunately, it only works on the main and selfie cameras. Using night mode, photos look a lot sharper. However, a lot of that is artificial additional sharpening, leaving more noise behind. Light sources are handled a bit better. It's nothing major.

Samsung Galaxy A16 5G: 12.5MP main camera night modes samples

Digitally zoomed-in 2x crop photos from the main camera at night are decent but largely unimpressive. There is plenty of noise in the frame.

Samsung Galaxy A16 5G: 12.5MP main camera 2x zoom low-light samples

The ultrawide is really disappointing in low-light conditions. All of the shots are soft and muddy. Light sources are blown out.

Samsung Galaxy A16 5G: 5MP ultrawide camera low-light samples

The selfie camera captures passable photos in low light. Faces look well-defined, even if a bit soft and lacking in skin texture.

Samsung Galaxy A16 5G: 13MP selfie camera low-light samples

Using night mode on the selfie camera improves general exposure quite a bit. The background seems to benefit most from the extra processing.

Samsung Galaxy A16 5G: 13MP selfie camera night mode samples

Video capture quality

The Galaxy A16 5G captures videos in AVC/h.264 by default, but you could also switch over to HEVC/h.265 to save some space. Videos end up with a 17 Mbps or so video stream and a 48 kHz stereo audio stream inside an MP4 container. Pretty standard stuff.

The Galaxy A16 5G can capture videos at a maximum of 1080p with its main, ultrawide, selfie cameras. This doesn't seem to be a hard chipset limitation, though, since we were able to capture 4K using Open Camera. Unfortunately, said 4K also ended up with a video bitrate of around 17 Mbps, which is way too low for UHD. There is also no stabilization.

In 1080p, the A16 5G has video stabilization even if it's not Samsung's SuperSteady.

You can check out the playlist below, which includes multiple video samples.

FullHD video from the main camera on the A16 5G is quite alright. The contrast and colors are fine. Even low-light videos come out with good dynamic range.

The competition

At the time of writing, a Galaxy A16 5G unit will set you back around €240 for the base 128GB/4GB RAM variant. The phone isn't universally available yet and seems to be a bit hard to find from reputable sources.

The current price is not particularly competitive, given that a little shopping around on Amazon brought us to some offers for the Galaxy A35 at around €250 for the 128GB/6GB version and about €290 for the 256GB/8GB model. The Galaxy A35 is a much better-rounded device overall. It is a 5G phone as well, with a more durable, IP67-rated body with a glass back, a notably brighter and faster 120Hz 6.6-inch AMOLED display, 6GB of RAM, even in its base variant, 4K video capture on both its main and selfie cameras and a generally more potent Exynos 1380 chipset. It also has stereo speakers, an under-display fingerprint reader and a better Active Use Score, as per our testing. The only thing the A16 5G has on the A35 is the fact that it is newer and will potentially get up to two extra firmware updates compared to the A35.

Samsung Galaxy A35 • Samsung Galaxy A15 5G • Xiaomi Redmi Note 13 Pro • Motorola Edge 50 Fusion

If neither of these points bothers you particularly, then why not consider last year's Galaxy A15 5G? You honestly won't be giving up much. You will have to settle for a slightly smaller 6.5-inch display and a potentially slightly slower Dimensity 6100+ chipset. Though, that last point is arguable. Besides that, you get a similar experience to the Galaxy A16 5G, plus a better Active Use Score and a 3.5mm audio jack, all for under €170 at current pricing.

The ever-popular Xiaomi Redmi Note 13 Pro can currently be found for around €260 for a 256GB/8GB RAM unit. Compared to the Galaxy A16 5G, the Redmi Note 13 Pro offers a much better 120Hz, Dolby Vision certified and much brighter AMOLED display. It also has a more potent Snapdragon 7s Gen 2 chipset. Plus, an arguably more versatile camera setup, including a 200MP main shooter with OIS, an 8MP ultrawide and a 16MP selfie. 4K video capture is on the table as well. The Redmi Note 13 Pro doesn't have a great Active Use Score, as per our testing, but at least it charges very fast for its class.

We also found a Motorola Edge 50 Fusion selling for right around €280 for the 256GB/8GB variant. Compared to the Galaxy A16 5G, it is a lighter and more compact device with a curvy display that gives it a more premium look. Said display also offers higher brightness and a higher refresh rate. You also get IP68 proper ingress protection with the Moto and a more potent chipset with 4k video capture. A main camera with OIS, a 32MP selfie and a 13MP ultrawide are also on the table. Stereo speakers are also part of the package, and so is fast 68W charging.

Our verdict

The Galaxy A16 5G is a nicely constructed device covering most bases. We particularly like Samsung's fairly new commitment to up to six major Android upgrades on modest devices. Undoubtedly, there is a lot to love about One UI and all of the added features it offers.

However, the Galaxy A16 5G seems to be behind the times in more ways than one. Samsung just isn't packing in that budget value like many other competitors. For example, the phone is only IP54 rated, it lacks stereo speakers, and its display, while not bad in any way, only has a 90Hz refresh rate and pretty modest maximum brightness. The Exynos 1330 chipset that we tested offers modest performance at best. The UI doesn't run particularly smoothly and is not snappy at all, which makes us worried about usability after a few Android updates have gone through, as promised. 4GB of RAM on a modern phone, even a budget one, just doesn't cut it anymore. We also don't particularly like the fact that video capture is limited to 1080p, and in general, the cameras on the A16 5G failed to impress us. While the phone has a decent Active Use Score, its charging time also failed to impress.

You all know that old saying: "There are no bad products, just bad pricing". While there is room for nuance in such a broad statement, we feel that it perfectly describes the Galaxy A16 5G in its current state. It is just too close in MSRP to the much superior Galaxy A35, and if savings are what you are after, there is the very similar Galaxy A15 5G. Perhaps, at this right price, the Galaxy A16 5G can become popular, even majorly so, but the way things currently stand, we can't give it an outright recommendation. You are better off shopping around.

Pros

• Solid build quality.
• Up to six major OS upgrades.
• Solid, if unimpressive, main camera.
• Great battery life in gaming and calls.

Cons

• Basic IP54 ingress protection.
• Not very bright display with no HDR support.
• No stereo speakers.
• Unsatisfactory real-world performance with stutters and slowdowns.
• Pretty basic 5MP ultrawide, no automatic night mode and no 4K video recording with the stock app.
• Subpar battery life in web and video.
• Virtual proximity sensor.